Many windows for vehicles, such as rear windows or windshields or the like, include electrical components or conductive elements, such as defrosting heater elements, such as defroster lines, strips or coils, or antenna elements or the like at or along a surface of a glass sheet of the window. Such conductive elements typically comprise electrically conductive silver flakes, which are mixed with low melting glass and applied or screened as a thick film to a surface of the glass sheet for the window or to a ceramic frit layer on the surface of the glass sheet. The silver layer is typically applied when the glass sheet has been cut to its desired shape and/or when a ceramic frit layer has been applied or screened to portions of the glass sheet. The glass sheet, which includes the defroster strips and conductive elements, is typically heated in a furnace to heat the glass to its melting point and to melt and fuse the silver conductive flakes and ceramic frit. The heated glass sheet is then molded to its desired shape and quickly cooled or tempered to achieve the tempered glass for the window. Typically, this is performed at a window or glass sheet manufacturing plant or fabrication plant.
Typically, after the glass sheet is formed, a number of such glass sheets are packaged and moved to another area of the glass manufacturing plant to have an electrical connector or clip attached to the silver conductive element. Typically, the connector is soldered to the conductive layer that is on a surface of the glass sheet at the end of the conductive line or strip. This is accomplished by various known soldering approaches, such as induction heating, contact heating or resistance heating, whereby the solder on the clip is heated to melt the solder and then cooled to secure the solder and the clip to the silver layer and frit layer on the glass sheet. Such known methods of soldering the connector to the conductive layer or element typically are capital intensive and may require costly equipment and/or typically provide challenges or difficulties in process control.
After the connector or tab is attached to the conductive element on the surface of the glass sheet, the glass sheet is not as well suited for dense packaging as it was before attachment of the connector. Therefore, the glass sheets are typically repacked in a less dense manner after attachment of the connectors and are then shipped to a vehicular or modular window assembly or manufacturing line, typically at a different assembly plant or facility, for further processing, which may include adding hinges, seals, frames or the like to the glass sheet to complete the modular window assembly. Such a conventional process is shown generally in FIG. 1.
Because of the costs and challenges associated with such known methods of attaching the electrical connectors, and because of the time involved in heating and cooling the connector, solder layer and glass sheet during such attachment processes, such approaches are typically performed at the glass sheet fabrication plant and are not suited for application at the modular window assembly plant. Therefore, the glass sheet of a vehicle window currently is typically packaged two times within the glass sheet fabrication or manufacturing plant, such that the current process is inefficient and, thus, may add to the cost of the completed window assembly. Also, because the electrical connector is typically mounted or secured to the glass sheet at the glass manufacturing plant, the glass sheets may be packaged in a less dense manner when transported to the vehicular or modular window assembly plant, which is typically remote from the glass manufacturing plant.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a window manufacturing and assembling process that overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art processes.